Onboarding refers to the procedure of welcoming a new hire into the company: a compilation of actions that either HR personnel, onboarding specialists, teamleads or managers - depending on the size of the company - need to take in order to effectively and efficiently assimilate new employees into the workflow of a business environment, while equipping them with the appropriate skills and knowledge needed to guarantee optimal performance. Delivering on expectations created about the work environment during the recruiting process infuses new hires with confidence and motivation for the job role.

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The onboarding process starts from the moment an offer has been signed and is the key transitional period during which a new hire is acclimated to the company culture, processes, values and management. The process itself differs across almost every business, but shares one common trait: it’s defined by time frame.

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Onboarding is the first point of reference to a new hire since signing a contract, and serves to provide them with the right toolkit needed to become a contributing and productive team member.

A smooth and effective onboarding process  is vital in acclimating employees to the role, company values, protocols and culture. It serves to engage employees from early on, molding them into high-performing workers that are committed to reaching business goals, while reducing turnover rates and retaining quality hires by making sure they feel like contributing members of the team.

Employee retention

The employee onboarding process is the very first touchpoint and reference point a new hire has to the company, right after the interview and negotiation period. First impressions count - if the experience doesn’t live up to expectations, it can impact the employee’s feelings on accepting the job offer in the first place, and might create incorrect assumptions about the company, causing a lack of motivation and encouraging them to keep an eye out for other work opportunities.

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A great onboarding process reduces costs by significantly decreasing turnover - improving employee retention by a whopping 82%, and productivity by over 70%, according to research conducted by Brandon Hall Group.

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Peak performance

The key purpose of onboarding is setting new team members up for success, providing them with the information needed to grow into their role and minimising confusion and questions. A clear understanding of the company core and how it navigates is essential in helping employees settle down into their jobs.

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Decreasing the time-frame to proficiency, seeing job objectives clearly for what they are, and cultivating good working relationships with other colleagues are key points,  as well as increasing engagement levels and promoting easier assimilation into corporate culture. Simply put, strong houses aren’t built on poor foundations.

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Cutting losses

Poor onboarding, or worse, a lack of it entirely, leaves new hires with poor confidence in their roles, low levels of cross-departmental and inter-colleague engagement, and worst of all, a high risk of leaving their jobs for better opportunities. These factors are costly for companies with the cost-of-hire often exceeding 100% of the replaced employee’s salary, and are even more so pronounced in remote work environments.

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In a 2020 Workable survey, HR professionals reported remote onboarding as the largest challenge to companies. If new hires, who would add new insights and ideas to your company, end up quitting for landscapes where the grass is greener, the hours spent searching, interviewing and finally recruiting the right talent will have all gone down the drain and you’re back to square one.

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Knowing what steps to take to effectively onboard a new hire as someone in charge can be overwhelming, especially if the workload in the department is high, but the company’s job is to make sure the employee experience at work is a positive one, increasing the probability of referrals. Sticking to the four Cs of onboarding can help in setting team members up for success, and raising employee retention rates.

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Start early

New hires often experience radio silence in the time period between signing a contract and arriving to their induction day. The new starter is at a loss for what to expect on the first day, including trivial details such as whether to bring lunch, where to park, what to say on arrival or what supplies he/she needs to bring along.

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Initial communication with your new hire should be informative and friendly, since starting somewhere new is intimidating enough. A quick email or call with a brief introduction on what to bring or what to expect is a simple and efficient idea when welcoming someone to the office.  This interim period is also the perfect idea to get mundane paperwork out of the way, if your company software allows for you to manage paperwork remotely. 

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Establish clear expectations

Everyone works best with an end-goal to focus on. When creating an onboarding strategy, keep the SHRM Foundation’s Four Cs model in mind: compliance, clarification, culture and communication. 

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Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are all policies, rules, regulations, and procedures that employees need to comply with clear? Communicate company-wide protocol clearly and make sure to  give out the same tools and resources to all new starters.
• Goal orientation: have you set clear job expectations and integrated deadlines into them? Employees need to understand the task at hand to do a good job. Giving examples of upcoming projects can define success and help paint a clear picture of the tasks at hand.
• Social support: after onboarding is complete, will new hires have a feel for the company culture and feel supported in communicating openly with colleagues? A physical tour and explaining where they fit within the entire company illustrate the direct impact their daily tasks have on the entire business.
• Closing the loop. After the introductory phase is complete, how will you follow up and maintain the relationship with an employee on a long-term basis?
• Is there any room for improvement, from the company side, in assisting the employee in executing the job role efficiently?

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Set a development plan

Every career path should have clear room for growth and development. Employers and managers easily get caught up in the hustle bustle of daily business, stringent deadlines for tasks at hand, and forget that goals and incentive are key factors in keeping up employee motivation and peak performance. Learning the areas where an employee has room to improve, what their learning style is, what type of support they need that you can provide them with, and which role they would like to move on into are just as important in building a strong connection and transparent communication from the get go.

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By setting clear expectations and achievable goals in forms of milestones from the beginning, new hires should know exactly what’s expected of them, as well as when and how. Setting up regular meetings to catch up and a good, transparent communication flow allow for keeping track of progress, resulting in a job well done, and encouraging feedback.

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Create a sense of community 

The first day is all about the experience, arguably more than the information. Facing meeting a lot of new people within a short space of time can be intimidating for new hires, but is an integral factor in retaining employee satisfaction over a longer-term period. Simply integrating a buddy system can be endlessly helpful in making a new employees feel welcomed, and serves as a point of reference in answering the many daily business questions new hires come across in the beginning.

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A tour of the facilities with as many introductions to cross-departmental team members as possible creates a welcoming feeling and breaks down communication barriers, encouraging employees to reach out across different departments in future workflow, creating transparent and open communication within the company. 

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Doing simple social things such as organising an introductory team lunch creates shortcuts in socialisation between the new hire and the rest of the team, which is a vital aspect in a smooth working relationship. A short, friendly note from a manager and smiles from colleagues are small gestures that can go a long way.

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Workspace setup

A common letdown to new employees is arriving to work on their first day to a receptionist that doesn’t know who they are and an office that isn’t even set up. After a lengthy recruiting process that left a good impression and influenced them to sign a contract, this is a rookie mistake that leaves new starters with an underwhelming first experience on his/her first day. Make sure their desk is clean and phone, computer and password logins are all set up before the employee is due to arrive. Introduce them properly to all software and hardware that they will need to use when going about daily business.

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Make sure to include them in group invites and events, grant access to the holiday calendar, and don’t forget to keep them in the loop on monthly business updates, ensuring smooth workflow without feeling like they have to remind the team and management to include them.

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Follow up

Many employers and HR professionals undermine the importance of following up in the onboarding process, focusing on other new starters and forgetting to check up on employees who are still settling in. Feedback should come in regular intervals, putting a system in place to regularly check in for a period of at least 90 days. An employee is only fully onboarded after an entire year - a common misconception is that the onboarding process lasts 30 days, but this is a large underestimation.

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Even if the new starter seems to be doing really well, it’s vital to open communication channels in order to set the base for giving and receiving honest feedback. This sets the tone for the future relationship between employee and HR, as well as employee and manager, and is an efficient way of reciprocating information and influencing business outcomes past the initial timeline. Don’t forget to praise employees for the good work they do, refer back to the performance review system and answer their questions.

If you wait for an employee’s first day to start off with the onboarding process, you’re already a few steps behind. Building a repeatable onboarding model not only comes off highly professional and informative, but impresses new starters and provides a consistent experience to all new hires, while significantly reducing the workload of the HR team. Standardising documents, guidelines and checklists during induction across all departments makes sure you prevent missing out on critical steps.

Implementing software

When dealing with a large number of monthly starters, employee onboarding softwares can be very helpful in automating  tasks such as account provisioning and setting up helpful reminders. Minimising paperwork means less chaos and more accuracy, reducing manual intervention and human error. Significantly reducing time spent on entering data, softwares make sure that nothing goes forgotten, so the focus can be fully placed on building an exceptional employee experience.

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An onboarding portal as a handbook is a great idea, providing new employees access to important information about the company that they can refer to. This can include information on company history, company culture, important documents, as well as protocol, mission and vision.

Sourcing top talent is only one segment of building a high-performing team. Once locked down, new hires need to go through a sophisticated onboarding process in order to accelerate the time it takes for them to perform optimally and succeed in a new role.

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Onboarding has a very significant impact on whether an employee decides to stay within a company. Employees are a company’s most important asset, and if they quit soon after joining, it depletes the company’s resources. A positive onboarding experience sets the foundation for the future and leaves a lasting first impression on new starters, reassuring them with positive feelings of having made the right decision to come on board.

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Creating a custom-built, comprehensive, and standardized onboarding strategy enhances employee experience and performance, as well as taking a large workload off the HR team, providing the time to focus on other projects.  Creating an ecosystem where starters are equipped with knowledge, realistically achievable goals, policies, and a supportive community sets an environment where accelerated growth and optimal performance is encouraged, sustaining business growth and employee retention.

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What’s a Rich Text element?What’s a Rich Text element?What’s a Rich Text element?What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

‍

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

‍

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

‍

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.